Sex, Rock'n'Roll and History

(Video) Films from Eastern Europe 1950-2000

The Special programme "Sex, Rock'n'Roll and History" deals with "Trash", the articulations of sexuality, perversion, transgressivity and monstrosity in the experimental Underground short film and video productions from the so-called former Eastern block states since the early 1990s. The programme explores the underground, the sub and counter cultures of the East from a new and different perspective.

Academism Is Dead, Long Live the Underground!

With the breakdown of socialism in the East the traditional production contexts of the old state institutions have disappeared as well. The introduction of video formats, Internet and CD-ROM have created favourable conditions for aesthetic innovations to go underground. Despite the often rather modest financial means, this development has let to the emergence of new and often performative ways of dealing with political symbolism and history, sexual violence, homelessness, drug abuse, the "Westernisation" of the East, and social difference, which all lead to the question of dissidence in a post-communist society. Whereas in the West, pop culture has become the vehicle of difference as well as an identity-creating factor, it is the Underground that has taken over this role in the East.

The Eastern View

"Eastern Europe is functioning like a symptom of the developed West especially in media or when using avant-garde media and art strategies. In examining the parallels between East/West, we can find in the Eastern European media and art productions important examples of a perverted and/or symptomatic logic of Western media strategies and visual representations connected in quite different ways. This can be shown with the example of the use of pornographic representations which is something that is not generally regarded as acceptable in the West because pornography is seen as the part of the commercialisation or consumerism of both the body and the media. In Eastern Europe, however, if we use pornography or pornographic visualisation in the media as a political stance, as a form of resistance to political conformity rather than sexual liberalisation, then we get a completely inverted reading of what pornography represents." Marina Grzinic, "Räume, Körper Fehlleistungen", in: springerin, volume IV issue No 3, 1998.

The Western View

Whereas there was quite a strong Western interest in the aesthetic developments of the East in the early 1990s, it seems to have vanished into thin air today. Artistic developments, however, have taken place during this "period of indifference." and will be presented in this programme. Today the Underground of the East appears as an irritating "symptom" of the highly developed West: "Eastern Europe is a surplus of Europe (as it was before the fall of the Berlin Wall: too little, or not enough, European) and no Europe." (Marina Grzinic)

The Return of the Political

Taking on the form of "body politics" and "anti-politics," aesthetic and political symbols are subject to totally different, "perverted" assessments in comparison to the West. A kind of traumatic reality bursts through the surface of daily routine: "It isn't red, it's blood." (Marina Grzinic) In those works we find the sexual (gay, lesbian, transvestite), pornography and the historical as politicised, theorized elements, not presented as content, but as context.

Countries, Filmmakers, Guests

The International Short Film Festival Oberhausen is going to present a unique compilation of works - some of which have been quite difficult to get hold of, reaching from the republics of the former Soviet Union to the countries of ex-Yugoslavia. Special emphasis will be given to the question on the subjects and the forms of current debates. The presentations will include works by Marina Abramovic, Gábor Bódy, Peter Forgács/Tibor Szemz�, Sanja Ivekovic, Vladimir Kobrin, Dusan Makavejev, Zbigniew Rybczynski, Aleksandr Sokurov, Jan Svankmajer. Guests are Gleb Alejnikov (Russia), Stephan Kovats (Germany/Canada), Olia Lialina (Russia), Mara Mattuschka (Austria), Joanne Richardson (USA/Rumania), Slavoj Zizek (Slovenia) et al.

The Programmes

Programme Curator

Marina Grzinic (Ljubljana, Slovenia): born 1958 in Rijeka; she received her doctorate in philosophy in Ljubljana; worked at the Institute of Philosophy of the Scientific and Research Center of the Slovenian Academy of Science and Art and as a media theoretician, art critic and curator; author of books and articles on media theory, society and visual art; together with video artist Aina Smid she produced 25 art videos, short films, numerous video installations, net.art projects and an interactive CD-ROM; participation in numerous video and film festivals, several awards; exhibitions in museums and galleries all over the world.